Three unusual earthquakes that shook a Dallas suburb over the weekend may be connected to fracking operations, according to a local geophysicist who has studied earthquakes in the region.

Data from the US geological survey showed the first earthquake,
which hit at 11:05 pm CDT (6:05 pm GMT) Saturday, measured at a
magnitude of 3.4 on the Richter scale. A few minutes later a 2nd
quake measuring 3.1 struck. These were followed on Sunday by a
3rd Quake measuring 2.1.

Despite a volley of emergency calls, no injuries were reported.

Cliff Frolich, a senior scientific researcher and associate
director at the University of Texas’ Austin Institute for
Geophysics, does not believe these quakes are a coincidence.

Before fracking began being employed on land near Dallas Fort
Worth Airport in 2008, there was virtually no seismic activity in
Dallas.

In a study published in the journal Proceedings of National
Academy of Sciences in August 2012, Frolich found that 67
earthquakes occurred between November 2009 and December 2011
within a 70 kilometer grid where fracking occurs over the
northern Texas Barnett shale formation. 24 of the earthquakes,
where the epicenter could be reliably mapped, occurred within 3
kilometers of the injection wells for wastewater disposal from
fracking.

Fracking – or hydraulic fracturing as it is technically known –
is the extraction of shale gas and oil trapped in rock strata
beneath the surface. Millions of gallons of high pressure,
chemical laden water is pumped into an underground geological
formation to force out oil and gas. Once fractures have been
opened up in the rock and the water pressure decreases, internal
pressure from the rock then forces the dirty fracking fluids back
to the surface, known in the industry as ‘flow back’.

This dirty water is often disposed of by pumping it back into the
ground. This has led to fears that the water table will be
polluted with severe health consequences.

Fracking can also be used to extract oil from a well that has
already been exhausted using traditional techniques.

A similar situation to Dallas exists in California where the oil
and gas industry is increasingly using fracking.

California is already one of the largest oil and gas producing
states in the US and last year about a quarter of all oil and gas
wells drilled were also fracked. With no regulation in place,
extraction companies are rushing to frack more wells.

California already sits in a zone of high seismic activity and
drought, concerning residents about how fracking could affect
their water supply and increase earthquakes.

“I didn’t buy here thinking this was going to happen in my
backyard. I would have had second thoughts about living here,”
Gary Gless, a Los Angeles resident, who lives just a few miles
from the Inglewood Oil Field, told RT.

When Gless and other residents moved into the area they were
assured the nearby oil wells were dry and that no fracking was
taking place.But following recent methane leaks they found out
that PXP, the company concerned, is using fracking to extract
oil.

“The foundations, I don’t know what is going on under my house.
If we do get an earthquake, I’m sure that with all these cracks
it will probably rip it all open,” Rosa Tatum told RT.

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Wastewater

The oil and gas industry has launched a huge public relations
campaign claiming fracking is safe as it’s been going on for
decades.

Fracking has been used in the US for 60 years, but has only
really taken off in the last 7. Shale gas amounted to 4% of the
country’s overall gas production in 2005, while in 2012 it had
risen to 24%.

Dave Quast from Energy in Depth, an advocacy group for the oil
and gas industry, told RT, “The 1.2 million times that fracking
has occurred in this country there has not been a single incident
of reported water contamination.”

PXP, which operates one of the largest urban oil fields in the
country, including the one next to Gless’s home, is conducting
its own study into what sort of effects fracking will have on the
LA neighborhood where they operate- but locals doubt it will
reveal the truth

“These fossil fuel giants influence policy enormously. They spent
$747 million lobbying Congress to get this Safe Drinking Water
Act exemption. That is a contamination of our democracy,” said
Josh Fox, director of the Oscar nominated documentary ‘Gasland’.

Brenda Norton, an activist with the campaigning group Food and
Water Watch, told RT that fracking is happening completely
unregulated in the state of California and that oil and gas
companies don’t have to say where they frack or what chemicals
they are injecting into water and into the ground, which could
possibly contaminate drinking water.

Oliver Boyd, a USGS seismologist and professor of geophysics at
the University of Memphis agrees that, in general, links between
wastewater injection and seismic activity are plausible.

“Most, if not all, geophysicists expect induced earthquakes to be
more likely from wastewater injection rather than hydrofracking”
[itself].

He continued that this is because the wastewater injection tends
to occur at greater depth where earthquakes are more likely to
nucleate and earthquakes are likely to occur some time (months to
years) after wastewater injection has ceased.

Residents in California are worried about losing their homes ,
after already being forced to cope with cracked foundations and
buckling roads.